Jackie McNamara reckons the Old Firm is friendlier affair than it used to be.
The former Celtic star should know. He landed a punch on Rangers’ Mark Hateley’s chin 26 years ago and managed to avoid being ordered off in one bad tempered encounter. McNamara believes it’s an all round tamer affair nowadays, with players bing far nicer to each other than they were in his day.
That’s not to say the modern day version is without its flashpoints. The cliche is that these games are refereed differently from the others, rightly or wrongly. Whether that explains some incidents going unpunished, who knows? There’s also a tendency to blow what would have been minor skirmishes back in the day out of proportion, but that’s part and parcel of Scotland’s biggest fixture, especially when there’s titles and trophies on the line. Players don’t always help matters by acting before thinking as well.
